


Absolutes

by tosca1390



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-03
Updated: 2010-07-03
Packaged: 2017-10-14 15:58:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/150983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tosca1390/pseuds/tosca1390
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Joanna was eight, and things were pretty black and white.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Absolutes

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [Awesome Ladies Ficathon](http://ineffort.livejournal.com/199061.html), for the prompt: _Joanna McCoy; Scent of magnolia, clean and fresh / Then the sudden smell of burning flesh._.

*

Joanna was eight, and things were pretty black and white.

Magnolias were her favorite flowers, and trees, and smells, first thing in the morning, with the air sweet and still cool from the summer night. Her mom and dad used to be in love, used to be married, and now they weren’t. She didn’t know why or how, but that was then and this was now. She liked art and hated history, was good at math but hated recess, mostly because the other girls wouldn’t play and she looked funny out there with all boys, but they weren’t going to stop her from playing softball (and playing well). Space was disease and danger and scary, and solid ground was always better to have her feet on, at least that’s what her daddy said.

Why he was in space now was a mystery, but it was still scary to her. He was an adult, and they might have gray areas, but she was Joanna McCoy and she believed in absolutes. Her mama loved her, her daddy loved her, and that was that.

She didn’t know about a drill, or a planet lost in deep dark black nothing. She didn’t know about her dad and a man on a shuttle who he risked his career for to bring with him into space. She didn’t know about hoverchairs and Centurian slugs and a mid-battle promotion and all the dead, so many dead—

She didn’t know those things until much later. All she knew was that over three years after leaving, after quick holiday and birthday visits and long conversation over fuzzy comms with her mama always standing over her shoulder with her mouth deep-set and eyes hard, after all that, her daddy was coming up the walk to the porch they used to sit on at night, and he was going to _stay the night_ in their old house.

With magnolias in the breeze, hot summer sun beating down, she pushed her thin dark hair from her eyes and rushed off the steps, away from her silent, but oddly at ease mother, trying to forget about then and now and how this whole thing just didn’t make sense between black and white. She leapt into his arms and let him hold her just about as tight as he ever had, pressing her nose into his neck, trying to smell the old grassy antiseptic hospital smell, that _daddy_ smell she knew by heart.

“You’re so big, Jo,” he murmured against her hair. “God, you just keep shooting up.”

He sounded sad and hoarse, not the grouchy but warm-wide-hearted man she knew as her dad. He was… different. Grayer all over and inside. He smelled like Dad but something else, a burning, icky smell that she couldn’t place, and didn’t want to.

She opened her eyes, looked over his shoulder, into the green-green lawn and blue-blue sky, saw the man from the papers, tall and blond and slouching, a few feet away. His eyes were as blue as the sky, as sad as her dad’s, and suddenly she felt gray and old and weary, because what exactly was she not being told?

“Jo, this is Jim,” her dad was saying as he leaned away from her, straightening up once more. “You might recognize him from the holos.”

The other man— _Jim_ —grinned a little, shrugged a little, and didn’t fit any sort of mold she had for _adults_ in her clear-cut brain. “They keep using my bad side in the photos, so it’s okay if you don’t,” he said lightly.

“He’s staying with us too,” her dad added.

“And he’s very welcome,” her mother chimed in quietly, also just sounding so sad and so weary, and Joanna just didn’t know what to think anymore.

Finally, she released her father and walked over to Jim, who looked more than a little scared of her, which also didn’t make much sense. “Nice to meet you,” she said, and stuck out her hand.

Jim studied her for a moment, crouched down, and shook her hand firmly, but not too hard. “You too,” he said softly, his eyes focused past her to she could only assume her dad.

With magnolias in the air, something acrid stuck in the back of her throat, Joanna McCoy wasn’t sure she believed in absolutes anymore. But she still believed in her daddy, her mama, and now she had Jim Kirk too. So maybe the gray areas wouldn’t be so bad.

*  



End file.
